English

Reflection at large distance from the central engine in Seyferts

Astrophysics 2009-11-07 v1

Abstract

We consider the possibility that most of the reflection component, observed in the hard X-ray spectra of Seyfert galaxies, could be formed on an extended medium, at large distance from the central source of primary radiation (e.g. on a torus). Then, the reflector cannot respond to the rapid fluctuations of the primary source. The observed reflected flux is controlled by the time-averaged primary spectrum rather than the instantaneous (observed) one. We show that this effect strongly influence the spectral fits parameters derived under the assumption of a reflection component consistent with the primary radiation. We find that a pivoting primary power-law spectrum with a nearly constant Comptonised luminosity may account for the reported correlation between the reflection amplitude RR and the spectral index Γ\Gamma.

Keywords

Cite

@article{arxiv.astro-ph/0109339,
  title  = {Reflection at large distance from the central engine in Seyferts},
  author = {J. Malzac and P. O. Petrucci},
  journal= {arXiv preprint arXiv:astro-ph/0109339},
  year   = {2009}
}

Comments

Proceeding of the meeting "X-ray emission from accretion onto black hole" 20-23 June 2001, Hopkins University, Baltimore, USA (style file jhuwkshp.sty included)

R2 v1 2026-07-22T08:02:45.469Z